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DAoC To Ameliorate Level Grind With Giveaways
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a 'State Of The Game' statement for PC MMO Dark Age Of Camelot, courtesy developers Mythic Entertainment, explaining that "We want to go even farther [to accommodate casual MMO gamers] and we will do so over the next few weeks." The "Gift of the Realm" system for the MMO is then explained, in which: "At certain time intervals... players will be able to go to their trainer and receive special rewards for their character. These rewards will include a new experience level as well as gold on a weekly basis. These changes are designed to help the casual as well as the new player succeed more quickly in DAoC." Could this be a solution to help reduce the grind in many MMOs? Update: 07/30 16:05 GMT by S : A commenter points to further details in a follow-up post from Mythic's Matt Firor.
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"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
Can't they make everybody level 60 with all artifacts and everything to begin with?
Like Carey in "Whose line is it anyway?": "Everybody gets a million points"
Oh, I see, the whole point of the game is to find the stuff and get the experience.
I see.
They're screwed. They are spoiling the children with faster and better toys.
Whatever happened to the days of 1d4 magic missiles?
"Piter, too, is dead."
One of the problems with DAOC is the new leveling grinds they keep adding with every expansion pack. All of these new grinds add benefits to lvl 50 characters, so even though you thought you were done grinding, every new expansion pack adds more grinding for all. If you started a brand new character today on a brand new account without knowing anyone on the server, I would hate to see the amount of gameplay it would take to get you to a lvl 50 with nice armor, a few artificats and a ML 10.
Johnkoerner.com
I wonder if they really will attract any casual players with this? If I were a casual MMOG gamer, it seems to me that a game like World of Warcraft or City of Heroes would offer more for me than any of the other crop out there right now, no matter how much they try to redeem themselves. In the sea of banality that is MMOGs right now, DAOC has exactly nothing to set itself apart from the masses of other MMOGs
I'm funny. If you come see me perform, I will make you laugh.
So you give kids levels faster... ok sure.
But remember this is DAOC, a huge point of the game is RVR combat. Levels are only a small part of the RVR equation. All this is is cutting down a little bit of one treadmill so people can focus on the other treadmill.. oh did we mention the other treadmill involves your greenhorn character getting his ass pounded by over and over again by other players who have more Realm Abilities and all sorts of other goodies that only killing in RVR combat can gain. Sure you got to 50 faster great.. but when your facing that guy who has more Realm Ranks than you do you can guarentee that you'll be taking a trip back to the bind stone asap.
You still have to keep up with the Jones after you "finish" leveling. Full spellcrafted gear, artifacts, realm levels and whatnot.
Unless you are playing on Ghaeris(the coop server) not alot of difference will be there.
"I am a kernel in the linux army"
I quit DAOC several months ago. I was a casual player and played about 1 hour per day. I grinded through all 50 levels although most of the time it did not feel like a grind. It took close to 2 years I quit because the high level content like Master Levels took a 5 to 10 hour chunk of time. How could they possibly expect people to sit at a computer for that long a period of time (when not at work :) ).
Even RVR takes a large time commitment. By the time you get a decent group moving my hour was up and the wife was yelling.
I don't think free levels is the answer. But making high level content doable for the casual player is a step in the right direction.
Lou Sir
the only way to truly eliminate the "Level Grind" problem in ANY multiplayer online rpg is to REMOVE LEVELS ENTIRELY.
improving your character should be about skills and abilities, not "levels" that somehow magically give you more hit/spell points or greater damage capability or in some other way generally make your character more powerful than some newbie with practically the same character (like same race, stats, etc). this is the sort of stupidity that leads to a situation where a level 10 warrior class who normally fights with a sword, for some reason decided to fight with a weapon he's never used (staff for example) and yet he can still beat a level 5 who has specialized in using the staff as a weapon, just because that level 10 has more hitpoints or some arbitrarily assigned bonus to his WC just for being level 10. it's stupid. that level 5 should be the one who wins in that sort of situation.